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New Dice Algorithm / True dice rolls

Game does not use true dice roll probabilities. Many, many times I've had 97-99% chance to win and dont.


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A bajillion people have said the dice are flawed - and Marky Mark comes along as the Lone Crusader to say they are fine lol!


Dude, ya obviously aren't up to speed with the probabilities... check out this website for a basic primer = 


http://www.datagenetics.com/blog/november22011/index.html



Like I said, we still have a level playing field as everyone has the same crappy dice (although it does mean you have to adjust the strategy of how you play) - however the monumental problem is, crappy rolls kill the popularity and profitability of the game... 


Right now it seems about 5 million people have downloaded Risk - which is great... but it could/should/would be double or even triple that!


More importantly, only a small percentage of people go ahead and pay for Premium - that percentage would be much higher... if SMG fixed all the many minor and major issues!


Anyway, seeing as you're even more obsessive than me (way to go bro lol!) and have recorded/uploaded some games - I'll go through them and put the data into a public Google spreadsheet... so we can all analyse till the kangaroos come home!

Aitch, there's no need to be a prick.  I have no problem with you or anyone else who thinks there's a issue with the dice, and I'm not in any way insulting you or them.

I'm aware that a lot of people have complained about the dice, and I'm also aware that I'm not the only person who thinks these complaints have been blown out of proportion and may well be artifacts of human psychology.  I didn't just jump into the tail end of this discussion without reading the previous posts and other threads on this same topic.  Just because a lot of people think something is true doesn't make that thing true (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argumentum_ad_populum).  In all of the complaining that's been done about the dice I haven't seen any evidence.  The evidence I have access to (my videos and others I've found on youtube) doesn't seem to support these claims of bad dice.  If I see evidence that does support bad dice, I will happily change my tune.

I'm also very familiar with the probabilities of rolling dice as they relate to RISK.  Not only have I seen the probability tables that can be found in numerous places on the internet, but I have actually worked out the probabilities myself to confirm what I've seen elsewhere.  I also have a background in math, specifically a BS, and I'm a math teacher by trade.

Post your spreadsheets if you want, but the raw data (videos) that you mentioned would be much better.  If you post videos, no one has to take your word for it that your spreadsheets are accurate.  I have my own raw data (my videos and others' videos on youtube), and that data does not seem to support the claims you and others have made about frequently encountering very improbable dice rolls.  That's why I'm skeptical.  If you're offended by my skepticism and requests that you actually support you claims with actual evidence, that's your problem.
Briand, I was curious enough to do the calculation for the 1 vs 1 case to see just how much difference changing the % of ones would make.  Long story short, you were correct that defender is better off with a reduction in the 1's probability and you were also correct that the change would be very small.

Specifically, if the probability of rolling a 1 was reduced from 1/6 to 0.14 and all the other probabilities were increased evenly, the defender's chances of wining would increase by about 0.073%.  This is such a small change that it would be very difficult to actually observe, but none the less you were right.  This small change would then carry over to other battle scenarios, but again the change would be so small as to be practically unnoticeable.

I completely agree about the time it takes to roll the dice.  The dice rolling animation really doesn't add anything to the game, and is pretty much just a waste of time.  A quick roll alternative to the blitz roll would be great.

If you are (or anyone else is) interested, I've included the details of my calculation in an image with this comment.
The fallacy of the dice rolls became obvious when, on the blitz function, I consistently lost 1 when 3-1. Switching to individual dice rolls changed the outcome dramatically, illustrating that a random number generator is not operative in blitz mode and probably not in the other mode either. SMG admits they use an algorithm. This explains the confusion. Probability is fickle enough.....but the probability of probability can get out of hand as it often does. Ditch the algorithm and make it random. Generate a random number between 1 and 6. This is a true dice roll. End of story.
The funny thing about your emphasis on "random" is no computer can truly generate random numbers. There has to be something to base it on. Time is usually what they use. Such as the ms on the timestamp or something like that. That can be predictable if you were capable of triggering the roll right at the exact ms, or whatever they use. But ultimately, because you're talking really arbitrary numbers from a user stand-point, it is pretty random, whether rolling one by one or using a Blitz matrix. It's still a "random" choice as to which outcome it selects. They do this to save on processing power. In the old days when it appeared to not use a matrix, an army of 50 against 50 would freeze the device for about a second while waiting for the result. It was irritating to be honest.

It's hardly even "random" when you roll dice as well. Some people can sort of control what they will roll. Of course the average person just drops them and hopes for the best but humans can modify the outcome.

Now, the most truly "random" I've seen that a computer can do is what random.org implements. They use slight changes in weather as their method for determining numbers. That is quite interesting and I guess as random as you can get, since that's a function based on natural occurrence and cannot be predicted.

In the end, as long as they aren't skewing the code one way or the other, I am fine with it. But I do think they have a skew on 1's. unless those stats are wrong. And I don't like slightly moving the edge towards the defender.

 

Mark, 

See my previous posts. The collective dice outcomes are not randomly distributed.  I logged just short of 1000 battles then removed combinations that had less than 13 observations. When entering into a battle, the probability of losing 1,2,3, etc armies was significantly lower than the actual outcomes. It was persistent and repeatable. Yet, the frequency of the numbers were more or less normally distributed. 


There were two distinct patterns. The distribution of armies lost for an overwhelming attacking force was bi-modal.  Either the attacker didnt lose enough armies or lost way too many. Even when accounting for the lower bound. 


When attacker & defender were within 3 armies of each other, if the attacker rolled lower numbers, the defender tended to roll lower numbers and the when the attacker rolled high numbers the defender rolled low number. You can see how this is problematic when individual die rolls are normally distributed right?



 The dice sequence is dependent on what SMG refers to as "transition matrix" (TM). The random number sequence if conducted in a "serial mode" requires many more random numbers (one for each state) than the TM approach. In Discrete Event Simulation, to go from State A to State B given a probability P, throw 1 random number in a uniform probability distribution between [0,1] and assign State A if the random number is < P, or State B if the random number is > P. Thats for a simple transition of one state to one other. Now if you want to go from State A1, A2, A3...Aa  to State B1, B2, B3 ..Bb  then you would need an axb size matrix, where the matrix elements correspond to the individual specific transitions. I would think SMG ran say 10 million dice simulations with all types of combinations to populate their overall BlitzMode TM. They have to simulate enough transition states to get whats called The Law of Large Numbers (normal distribution) mean and variance..   The issue is that their matrix element values may be juiced or skewed so when the one dice is thrown Blitz Mode, it might not seem to be in accordance with the probability distribution of the TM.


The Random Number Generator (Merseinne Twister) is a very robust algorithm. However the TM values are not subject to the same statistics as the generator.


If SMG gets the message their TM elements are hosed, then they will correct it.


There is a small probability that 5 armies will prevail against 15.

New update just rolled out: https://www.facebook.com/riskglobaldomination/photos/a.628832297304715.1073741828.619495338238411/854337008087575/?type=3 "+ Blitz Dice rolls Fixes" Ran through 3 single player games. The attacker losing the SAME AMOUNT OF TROOPS as the defender 99 PERCENT OF THE TIME is NOT "fixed".
Anxious to see if I get the same result.

 

I wouldn't say 99% of the time but it was definitely quite consistant with a little bit of favor towards the attacker. What was obvious is when blitz against 1 army territories, both attacker and defender both lost 1 every single time. I've seen this bug before, on the last update, and submitted a ticket already. Not gonna play till that's fixed. Takes about a day or so.

 

With the last upgrade, I am convinced that the dice are not random due to external data being considered in the alogarithm or incompetence in the software design team. The outcomes don't match probabilities. I'm done with SMG Studios Risk. Glad I didn't pay anything for it.
I have lost 16000 more troops than i have won. Once you reach master status the OPPONENT'S roll a very high % of 5s and 6s. They should record opponents roll %. There is a reason they don't

I just don't play beginner or lower anymore. I don't think there's anything wrong with the dice, although it's burned me a few times with scenarios that seemed unrealistic but that's also the game. But I don't want to waste my time playing beginners anyway. Eventually, SMG should have a system where we can block people from joining our games based on rank and we can have all master games. But for now, I just create games under 3 minute, progressive, classic map and I let it fill, then boot everyone below intermediate, then refill the spots. You have to do it this way or you may run into server errors. If someone leaves as you're booting others, it can cause a server issue. For this reason, if 1 slot is waiting to fill for more than 5 seconds, I'll join with a junk account from another device to make sure no server error and if not, just boot myself lol.


Ever since filters became a part of the game, it's been easier to find higher ranking players. We seem to migrate towards the 3 min games and it actually doesn't take long to fill them, although sometimes so many join at once I am sure some are cheating. Doesn't seem to change my ability to win? haha. Anyway, I am talking about this because maybe others will follow the trend and we can keep making games together and keep booting the low ranked players. I'd really prefer expert+ but without ability to communicate within the game people tend to be impatient and I have to go with lower than I want.


I'm also compiling friends with expert+ players. You'd think eventually I'd have enough friends that I can just start friend only games but it's been rough doing that. Now I think it doesn't even notify you if someone sends a friend request. You just have to both push the friend request button.

I would like everyone to post their rank and number of troops won and number of troops lost.  I am a master/grandmaster  85000 won 102000 lost, smg says that is normal.

If you were looking at strictly attacking, you should have more won than lost. But you also have to consider others killing your single territories as being heavily biased towards you losing a lot more over wins. So I think a lot of this comes down to how many games you've won vs how many have been lost. Most of my accounts are just shy of the same number of wins as losses so it would make sense that I'm pretty close for won/lost. If I had won more than lost then I would think the won troops would be higher.

I have several accounts with most having more losses than wins (but relatively close to each other) and they have just slightly less won than lost. One of my accounts, which I opened strictly to practice 4 player games and reached grandmaster relatively quick (apparently I'm good at 4 player games) with 42 wins and only 14 losses, This account has a lot more won than lost.

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